Iran: The tragedy of the failure of the Constitutional Revolution

From Anarchist Perspective

During my conversation tonight with a dear comrade, he said: “We've already had the tragedy once (the Constitutional Revolution itself), we've had the comedy ('78), now we've arrived at tragicomedy!” I was immediately reminded of the saying, “The first time is tragedy, the second is farce,” not to laugh at people's suffering, but to see the mechanism of the repetition of roles: each generation, with new words, re-enters a stage whose set remains the same.

Insight Myanmar podcast: “Zenarchism”

From No Selves, No Masters

Though this blog has been relatively inactive for the past few years, I still try to keep tabs on the subject while surviving and working on a book draft. Recently, the fantastic Insight Myanmar podcast, who I have had some dialogue with in the past, participated in a panel discussion in Chiang-Mai on the intersections of Buddhism, Anarchism, and social-revolutionary activism.

Spring: Either in Revolution or in Prison

From asranarshism

As the scent of spring fills the streets of Iran, so too does the stench of poverty and misery rise from the empty tables of the people. Nowruz, once a celebration of nature’s rebirth and a time of hope, has become a bitter reminder of soaring prices, economic stagnation, and financial ruin. For many, the new year is not a time for joy but rather a deeper descent into debt and despair. But who is responsible for this crisis? And more importantly, what path remains for the people?

About the Syrian revolution, by Lebanese writer and anarchist Elia Ayoub

The Syrian revolution started off as a bottom-up, working class uprising from the peripheries organised through local coordination committees. They set up local councils throughout the liberated areas that coordinated to provide services in the absence of a state.
They actually experienced life without the state, and they thrived. They were the living proof that not only can it be done, but that it can be fun and meaningful. Libraries, clinics, hospitals, schools, soup kitchens and more - all organised by the people who belonged to their communities.

How can one live freely in the shadow of a prison?

There are moments, like today in Syria, when we can only rejoice. See the statues of Bashar and his relatives looted, the crowds in the streets, the open prison doors. These moments that remind us that all regimes, including the most authoritarian ones, can fall.

If there is a constant in the revolutions, it is that of freeing prisoners. Symbol of power, of who can decide the freedom of its subjects, prison is one of the nodes on which rests submission to the State and acceptance of social norms.

Combat Sports and Revolution

From It's Going Down

Original title: "Combat Sports and Revolution: A Report Back from Fight Weekend in North Carolina"

Through the weekend of October 18th-20th, the triangle-area of North Carolina hosted a series of events to bring combat sports and revolutionary politics together. This weekend was put together by a handful of comrades and friends who have been training, fighting, and coaching together, some of us for more than a decade.

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